5 Ways to Make your Weekends Productive

Fri, 11/09/2012 - 4:26pm | by Lpaho13

The sun assaults your eyes as it makes its way into the room through the tiny slits in your horizontal blinds. You roll over in your oh-so-soft bed and look at the clock. It reads noon. You roll back over and pull a pillow atop your face to block out the troublesome light.

If this is what your weekends look like, you’re likely robbing yourself of loads of productive time you could be using to get things done. Instead of allowing another two-day break to pass by without accomplishing anything, dedicate yourself to transforming your leisurely weekends into get-things-done days.

1. Make a List

Something as simple as a list can make all the difference when it comes to enhancing productivity. To boost your weekend efficiency with little effort, craft a list of things you want to get done on Saturday and Sunday as soon as you get home on Friday. Use this list as a roadmap of sorts, consulting it throughout the weekend. As you complete tasks and cross them off, you’ll likely feel a sense of accomplishment and will certainly see a spike in your weekend productivity rate.

2. Plan Your Day

During the week, your days are necessarily scheduled as you rush from meeting to meeting or stay chained to your desk plugging away at your latest project. On the weekends, however, many people are completely schedule-free. If you find this lack of structure leads you to flounder about, getting little done, outline an agenda for yourself. Instead of sleeping in, set a wake-up time. Fill the rest of your day’s calendar by planning out blocks of time to complete set tasks, perhaps consulting the list you crafted on Friday evening. Always aim to include some end-of-day relaxation time, ensuring that you still have the opportunity to rest and recuperate over your weekend.

3. Make Weekends Learning Time

If you find that you often lounge away your weekends, give yourself something to do by turning your lazy days into learning-filled ones. Though you may be too busy with work during the week to do any kind of studying, you can still further your education just by using your available weekend time. Enroll in an online education program that offers courses or a degree relevant to your field. By undertaking this task on the weekends, you can add direction and purpose to what would otherwise have been just a few lazy days off.

4. Reward Yourself for Productivity

It’s easier to be industrious when you get something in return. Though productivity has its own rewards – for example, tending to that squeaky door will ensure you don’t have to suffer that noise each time you enter the room – these benefits are often not enough. Add in some other rewards to give you more motivation to be productive. Make a deal with yourself that you can get ice cream as soon as you accomplish four around-the-house tasks, for example. With this little treat hanging over your head you’ll likely find the chores you tackle less loathsome.

5. Journal about your Productivity

Many individuals benefit from introspection. If you’re a fan of journaling, make your to-do list a topic in your weekend journal entries. At the end of the day, sit down with a pen and paper and write about your productivity – or lack thereof. In composing a journal entry on this topic, you’re forced to engage in a conversation about the topic, making you more accountable to yourself. Write about your productivity successes and failures, and brainstorm some things that you could do to further enhance your weekend work rate. Commit to being honest in these journal entries and you’ll likely find this writing process helps you get a better handle on what works – and doesn’t work – for you when it comes to being productive on the weekend.

After a long week of work, having the desire to relax is perfectly normal. You shouldn’t, however, allow your wish for leisure to leave you getting nothing done on these free days. By employing some of the above techniques, you can enhance your chances of heading back to work on Monday not groggy from a weekend of over-sleeping, but instead feeling powerful and accomplished as you think back on all you got done during that weekend time.

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